Burning Sage mpeg files to DVD

[Stuntman]

I just bought a DVD +RW and want to start archiving some of my recorded TV shows to Disk.. I was wondering and hoping for input on the following..

1) What tools do you recommend for shrinking these mpeg files so that I can fit more than a couple per disk?

2) What software do you use/prefer to burn them to DVD with..


I'd like to, for example, put 10 episodes of Clifford on one DVD for my son to watch.. I don't need them to be stereo, or even super hi resolution.. just watchable... but for other programs I may want to dump them in the highest quality possible..

Any pointers/suggestions would be appreciated!

[dgage]

I wish I could give you more specifics but I am researching the exact same thing you are.

For software, DVDRHelp.com seems to have the most information about different tools available.

I haven't created a DVD yet because I haven't recorded enough cartoons for the kids yet but here is what I use.

*** nanoCosmos - To edit out the commercials. Came free with my PVR250.

Womble - Expensive but nicer to use to edit out commercials. I am currently using the trial. www.womble.com

*** Ulead DVD MovieFactory - Haven't used it to actually record a DVD yet but I did walk through to the last step. Looks pretty good and allows you to select multiple videos and then setup a menu system. Again, this one is free with the PVR250 and probably the 350 as well.

*** - means it came free with the PVR-250.

Also, instead of reencoding at a lower bitrate, you might want to use a tiered approach to recordings as mentioned in the following post by Stranger89.
http://forums.sage.tv/forums/showthr...&threadid=2760
I just started using this tiered approach but I think it will work for me. I just have to remember to up the resolution on new favorites I add. Or remember to lower the quality for cartoons for the kids.

Good luck with your research. I look forward to reading about what you came up with.

David

[eruji]

Stuntman,

First off i would like to say that the easiest way to author a setop playable DVD would be to change SageTV to capture in one of the DVD formats, i would go 1.8 gig per hour to get probly 5-6 30 min episodes on a dvdr. That way you have a DVD compliant mpg ready to author and burn.

Assuming that you are capturing to one of the DVD formats and would just like to compress the video to fit more episodes i would do the following:

1.) Womble to cut out the commercials. (i havnt really used anything else, womble is easy and fast, no reencoding)

2.) Ulead DVD Movie Factory to author one big DVD with however many episodes you want. Basicly DVD movie factory works by adding all of the videos you want and making a nice menu and chapters. Have Ulead DVD make the DVD on your harddrive instead of burning it to disc, that way you can make a much larger hard drive DVD.

3.) DVD shrink to shrink the whole dvd package down to fit on a single disc.

Thats the quickest way i can think of:

20-30 min to cut commercials
30+ min to author dvd and build the dvd file system
1-3 hours for dvd shrink to reencode the dvd.
??+ time it takes to burn the DVD (30 min for 4 speed)

[stanger89]

I haven't burned much to DVD yet but here are my experiences:

-nanocosmos sucks, I used it on the first ep of Battlestar Galactica. It appeared to work fine, I then made a DVD out of it with DVD Movie Factory. When I went to watch it the audio gradually grew out of sync during the show, by the end it was out by a few seconds.

-I did the second ep with Womble and it worked perfectly.

Other than that I haven't played much since there hasn't been much I want archived.

[roddym4]

I've done the same thing successfully for other cartoon shows to create episodic DVDs. The easiest way for me was to create the previously recommended VCD quality in the Sage Properties file. Then I use DVDit (compatible with VCD MPG1 files) to create the epsiode DVD using thumbnails of the shows themselves as the icons. This works pretty well as it does not require any reencoding by DVDit authoring software. Simply identify them, and burn away. DVDit transcribes the audio which can take a while over many episodes (8 with leaving commericals in). But it's a "set it and walk away" endeavor. Painless really.

Only one major drawback: shows recorded as VCDs using the recommended custom setting cannot be played back in Sage. Don't get why they won't, frankly, but hey, if the purpose is to record for DVD storage, who cares.

[frank2056]

I was in the same boat a few weeks ago - I was looking for a good mpeg editor that could cut out commercials without re-encoding the whole mpeg file - something like Virtualdub that can both read and write mpeg-2 files. There are a lot of mpeg editors out there, but most are crap.

After a long search, I found Womble

Their MPEG-VCR is a simple "honest" editor that does a great job at editing mpeg-2 files.
Their MPEG Video Wizard has more features.

I'm using the Video Wizard. It's more expensive, and the interface is not as intuitive as they claim, but the learning curve is shallow and quick.

I connect to my Sage PVR box, open the recorded mpeg files with the video wizard (over my home network) and edit away. Saving the edited files is extremely fast.

One cool feature that I "discovered" in the program is the ability to fix those dammed mpeg-2 audio sync problems. I just split the mpeg files into video and audio files, load them back into the video wizard (putting the audio file in the audio track) then cut the audio at the point where it goes out of sync with the video. I then move the cut section after the error into the music track, and drag it back and forth while the video is playing. It's really easy to repair sync errors this way. I then delete the audio overlap and save the edit.

Both programs are worth the money.

[dgage]

I just actually did some saving to DVD this weekend for my parents. I am upgrading their Tivo and they wanted a few shows saved.

I used my PVR-250 to get the video although I had to use the coaxial input because the sound wouldn't come in with the S-Video or RCA input no matter what settings I tried or whether I took the sound through the PVR-250 or sound card. But that is another story. With Sage, I don't plan on having to do that much although I am putting some of my wife's exercise VHS tapes to DVD but quality isn't much of a concern there.

I used nanoCosmos some but really didn't like it that much. Not enough shortcuts.

I agree with Frank2056 that Womble is where its at. I really like the cheaper of the two, MPEG-VCR as I think I can edit commercials quicker with it. However, since I am going to be spending that much anyway, I think I will spend the extra for the MPEG Video Wizard. It is still really good but I agree that it is not as intuitive and it takes me just a little longer to edit commercials out. However, it does have some nice features that I am likely to use when I edit actual home videos. Start to finish, I can edit commercials out of an hour long show in under 5 minutes and that includes the time to save the edited movie back to disk.

I also used the Ulead DVD Movie Factory that comes with the PVR-250 to put the videos onto DVD and it worked very well. Easy to use and the results look pretty good. Simple menu system but it works. One tip that I didn't notice at first is that you can pick the video frame to show as a thumbnail in the main DVD menu. Just click on the video and then specify the exact frame's time and it will show up in the menu.

I will probably upgrade at some point to a nicer DVD authoring tool once I start doing more home movies (7 month old twins). However, I believe I will be using these tools for a while as DVD creation is still a rather new technology. Cheaper tools with more features and capabilities will be worth waiting for.

Have fun!

David

[justme]

Wombles(I've only tried MPEG2VCR) is the only editor I've found that can reliable edit Mpeg files made with the PVR250. My Via chipset has PCI issues and introduces severe(1,000 a min) PTS errors, these errors occur in WinTV2000 and even KevinKiller's WinTVcap as well. Wombles is able to edit(remove commercials) all but the worst files and still retain AV sync. As a general rule even the worst files are fine if they are under 1 hour in length, and I even edit 6 hour recordings without synce issues on the less severe files. Wombles rules.

I'll have to try the Mpeg Video Wizard. Would you say it's worth it for me to buy MVW if I already have MPEG2VCR. I'm just starting to play with DVD authoring seriously. I've been waiting on a new motherboard for a new HTPC box, this should get rid of my PTS issues as it uses an Intel chipset.

PS:Just in case anyone wonders, yes I verified that it is not a defective PVR250 that caused the PTSs. I now have 3 cards, 2 250s and a 350 and all give the PTSs on the Via board. This MB would be totally useless without the PCI latency patch Hauppauge suggests for VIA users, on their site.

[stanger89]

Womble can fix those PTS errors. It's under tools or something.

Wow 1000 PTS errors/min, glad I ditched my KT266 and got an 845PE board (My recordings have no PTS errors).

[justme]

Womble can fix those PTS errors. It's under tools or something.

Thanks, I know that's one of the reason's I love Wombles soo much. Still I've found it's best to edit first and let Wombles fix them when it writes the final file. I do sometimes use Wombles to "fix" an uneditted file if i plan to feed that file to another processing program. ie Divx/Xvid or CD/DVD burner.

Yeah I really hate the VIA chipset in my main box, but my XP license is an OEM. It checks the motherboard Bios for a key and won't install without it. So I'm stuck using this board in this box unless I buy a new XP license. Which really kills me because I payed(seperate item on the invoice) for WinXP Pro when I bought this box. I'll never buy another prebuilt system again. That's why I'm peicing together my new box myself.

Anyway, sorry for going off topic and thanks for the tip.

[dgage]

Nothing says you can't transfer the license to a new machine. You may need to call Microsoft but explain the reason you switched. As long as you don't try registering it to two machines at the same time, you should be allowed to do that. As a matter of fact, there is some fudge factor there so that if you rebuild your machine, you may not even have to call, even if it is on a new system.

And OEM just means you bought Windows XP with a system, it does not mean it is tied to that system.

David

[justme]

dgage,

I appreciate the advice, but I'm not talking about the normal Windows XP protection/activation. I've found that isn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be, except one time I restored a HD image made before activation and for some reason WinXP wouldn't recognize the Nic. So I had to do the call thing, man reading/typing all those numbers is hard to do without making a mistake.

What I have is tied to my motherboard's BIOS somehow. It is a "Recovery" cd, sorry I should have used that term earlier. As a test I tried to install it onto a laptop I have. The CD went partially into the install and then(before activation) informed me that this Motherboard was not allowed. It would only work with "Magnell" authorized boards, or something like that. I know that WinXP works on this laptop since that's what was on it before. I then used the XP cd from the laptop to redo the install.

So I have 1 WinXP Pro CD "retail" and 1 WinXP Pro "Recovery" CD. I have a seperate and legal license for both. I had to pay $75 more to get WinXP Pro instead of "Home" so I don't feel that my "recovery" CD should be tied to a particular motherboard or retailer. ABS was the company that sold me the computer and license. I've compared the two CDs using ISO software and they seem almost identical.

I know Microsoft allows you to buy just a license key if you already have a WinXP CD with a license. With that in mind I wonder if I could use my Laptop(retail) CD to install Windows on my new motherboard and use the license that originally came with the ABS case. There would be nothing immoral in this since I own two licenses and would only be using them on two computers. I hope this will work but I doubt it. I have a feeling I'd find that the license I got with the "recovery" CD won't work with a "retail" CD. I'll try it and then check with Microsoft as you suggest.

The worse case scenario would mean me using my retail license and it's CD to upgrade my ABS system's motherboard. I would then remove WinXP from the laptop and install an old copy of Win98SE I own. But I really don't want to do that since it means the recovery license and CD go to waste and the laptop gets downgraded to 98. This may be the only legal way to go. I'm an honest person but this makes me feel like I've been pirated.

Oh, and I really wouldn't feel good selling someone the ABS Motherboard, recovery CD and license together. Although this would be work for them and cover some of my costs. I just don't won't to sell a motherboard I don't reccomend you buy. Then there's the fact that the XP license and CD would be tied to the motherboard for that person. I don't think the way to solve this is to pass the problem on to some one else.

[SHS]

Go eBay and buy a copy of Win2000

[dgage]

I recommend you try the ABS key with an XP installation. Barring that, I have to agree with SHS that you should get Windows 2000. It isn't quite as stable as XP but it is a heck of a lot better than 98. And please, do not let Windows ME get anywhere near your CDROM or your computer might spontaneously explode.

David

[justme]

Thanks guys.

Oh no worries about Win ME. I burnt that virus, I mean OS, cd.

[wangeth]

For those of you using Ulead DVD Movie Factory 2, have any of you ever run into the problem of burning an mpg to DVD and getting no audio? The original mpg file looks and sounds great, but after putting it through DVD Movie Factory, there is no audio track. Ideas?

[malore]

wangeth, do you know for certain that there is no audio track? The freeware program dvdshrink or other dvd ripping tools will show you the contents of the dvd. The dvd I made with movie factory 1, played fine on my computer, but I couldn't get sound on my standalone dvd player until I changed some settings on the player (to get it to pass the mpeg audio through the optical cable, unfortunately this also disabled DTS sound).